Friday, July 6, 2012

Final Fantasy Tactics (PSX)

Rating: 5 out of 5

Pros: Great story, diverse cast of characters, many different ways to play

Cons: Cutscenes can be really slow, especially between chapters

Final Fantasy Tactics was developed by Square and released in
early 1998 for the Sony PlayStation video game console. It was among the
first strategy/tactical RPGs that I had ever played and soon became one
of my favorite games for the PlayStation. It had all the flair and
depth of a Final Fantasy title combined with the strategic gameplay of a
game like Fire Emblem or Shining Force.

[Story]

Soon after the Fifty Year War with one of it's neighbors, the Kingdom
of Ivalice is thrust into another war after the death of it's king. This
new war, the Lion War, is a civil war that revolves around who should
be the heir to the kingdom. The king had two children, Princess Ovelia
and an infant son named Prince Orinas -- and since the prince was but an
infant, whoever was appointed his guardian would rule in his stead. The
ambitions and manipulations of the Queen's brother Prince Larg the
White Lion, and the King's cousin Prince Goltana the Black Lion lead to
what is later termed The Lion War.

The story is pretty deep
and complicated, but that's the overriding plot arc. House Beoulve has
pretty high standing in the realm due to their contributions in the
Fifty Year War, and you take on the roll of the youngest brother Ramza
Beoulve for the game. Not only does he have to deal with the two lions
throwing the world into chaos with yet another war, but the Glabados
Church with its secret agenda as well to complicate things. The story is
wonderful and well fleshed out -- it contains many twists and turns,
intrigue and betrayal, but there's so much to it that at times it gets a
little hard to follow.

[Gameplay]

The main
world is a flat map with locations that work similar to the world map in
Super Mario Bros 3, but you start out with only a couple of these
locations visible with a line connecting them. Moving onto the next open
location usually starts a battle (or occasionally a cut scene) and when
you finish that battle it unlocks an additional location or series of
locations to advance the story. After the initial battle the dots
representing the different locations change colors so that you know
you're finished with that area, a blue dot for a town/castle and a green
dot for a field location.

You can't actually enter any of the
locations except during battles, but when you're at a town or castle
you can bring up a menu to interact with various things inside. Buying
or selling equipment, hiring random soldiers, visiting the pub to listen
to rumors or take on jobs, etc. Taking on jobs is a nice way to get
backup characters some experience as you'll have to play without
whatever characters you send for the number of days that the job lasts.
In Final Fantasy Tactics one day is goes by for every dot you move on
the world map.

Green dots are just extra stops after you
complete the initial battle, but they do have a chance to spawn a random
battle at that location. Unlike story battles in which you fight the
same group of enemies at the same level with the same equipment every
time, random battles scale to your level and have a random assortment of
enemies in them. So if you decide to level up a bit to make a certain
story battle easier, you still may find yourself having a tough time
with some of the random battles just because the enemies may be much
closer to your own level and have more abilities to use.

During battles the game switches to a 3D-looking view where the map is
made up of isometric, diamond-shaped blocks. The maps are relatively
small, and you get to take a party of (usually) five characters into
battle against the enemies. Sometimes you'll have "Guest" characters in
your party, who are characters tagging along for a portion of the story
line. They are completely controlled by artificial intelligence, but
often lower the number of characters you're allowed to bring into battle
so that you're sitting at five total. The enemies may number anywhere
from two or three up to over a dozen. Characters and enemies both move
around the blocks based on their move and jump stats, with the move
referring to how many blocks you can move in any direction and jump
referring to how many blocks you can climb vertically.

Some
maps are pretty flat and jump is useless, but other maps are really
vertical, to the point of obstructing the view of the camera and being
annoying. Thankfully you can rotate the camera to four fixed positions,
one at each point of the diamond-shaped blocks, but sometimes you just
can't see very well. R1 and L1 rotate the camera around, R2 slightly
changes the camera angle (up and down to two preset heights), and L2
zooms in and out of the map a little bit.

There are probably
20 different enemy types ranging from different classes of humans, to
Chocobos, skeletons and dragons. Most of the monster type enemies have
different versions as well, who have increased power and a different
name but look exactly the same except for a color palette swap. There
are also a number of boss encounters during the story battles, and these
can range in difficulty greatly. If you've leveled up a bit and are
just there to win the battle as soon as possible they are mostly easy
enough. On the other hand, if you're not too leveled up and you wish to
steal something in particular from a boss you may find yourself
frustrated beyond belief. (The battle with Marquis Elmdor comes to mind
here, where he has a full set of unique Genji Gear to steal.)

Final Fantasy Tactics is a turn-based tactical RPG, and battles use a
system based on Charge Time (CT). Characters fill up a CT bar at a rate
equal to that character's speed, and when it reaches 100 that character
gets it's Active Turn (AT). Speed will vary depending on the character's
current class/job and what equipment he has on, so you may have one
character that gets a couple of turns before another character gets one.
Charge time can be viewed easily because it fills up a third bar
directly under the character's health and mana bars.

A
character's spells and abilities have their own seperate speeds as well,
so if you're casting a higher level spell like Cure 4, Meteor or many
of the summoning spells it will likely take multiple turns before it
gets executed. You have to be careful casting spells that hit an area on
the ground, because if it has a long CT the enemy you cast it on may
have moved out of the way before it ever gets cast. In some cases where
you have a specific enemy targeted so he can't escape, he may walk over
and stand beside you so that you get hit with your own spell when it
hits him -- making CT management really important.

You gain
experience and job points when you perform actions in battle. At the end
of each battle you get some money, and usually some random bonus items
as well. These bonus items can range from a small amount of money, to
potions or elixirs or even pieces of equipment. Also, when any character
or enemy dies they get a timer that counts down as their normal turn
would have passed. It starts at 3 and when turn 0 passes, that
character's body disappears forever (and can no longer be revived, so
you can permanently lose characters). When it disappears it leaves
behind either a crystal or a treasure chest. If you step on the crystal
you can restore your health and mana, or sometimes gain some abilities
that the dead character had (if it was a human). The treasure chest will
usually give you a piece of equipment that the dead character had
equipped, or else an item like a potion or a phoenix down.

[Characters]

Aside
from Ramza, there are a number of other named characters you can
recruit throughout the game. Cid makes an appearance like he does in
just about every Final Fantasy title, but in Final Fantasy Tactics he's
known as T.G. Cid or "Thunder God" Cid and is of the class Holy
Swordsman. The name is fitting, because when you get him during the
storyline he can almost single-handedly win battles for you for a while.

Ramza, Cid, a Chocobo, and 5 more special named characters make up your
main cast. To further that total there are 5 hidden characters in the
game, including a well-loved hero from a previous Final Fantasy
installment. In addition, you can hire random characters in most towns
if you need to fill your ranks until you receive all of the named
characters throughout the story, or to train especially for specific
roles you may need filled.

You can even recruit monsters into
your ranks, and those monsters will lay eggs to give you even more
monsters. Sometimes it gets excessive and you have start dismissing
monsters as they start multiplying like rabbits. Sometimes enemies will
lay eggs of a different tier monster as well (the one that looks the
same but with a color swap), like a Behemoth laying a Behemoth King egg
or a Chocobo laying a Red Chocobo egg for example.

Any of the
human characters can switch between a number of different classes, or
jobs as they're called here. The total list of jobs includes Squire,
Chemist, Knight, Archer, White Mage, Black Mage, Monk, Thief, Oracle,
Time Mage, Geomancer, Dragoon, Mediator, Summoner, Samurai, Ninja,
Calculator, Dancer, Bard and Mime. It's a pretty extensive list, but you
unlock them over the course of the game by leveling up earlier jobs.

For example, when you level up the Squire job class to level 2 you
unlock the Archer and Knight jobs. Leveling Archer to 2 gets you a
thief, and Knight to 2 gets you a Monk. A level 3 Monk gets you a
Geomancer, and then the fun starts. If you take the Geomancer to level
2, the Archer to level 3 and the Thief to level 4 (yes, three separate
jobs that each have prerequisites) then you finally unlock the Ninja
job. If that sounds like a lot of leveling to unlock, just wait until
you want to try out the Calculator or the Mime!

The special
named characters that join your party each have an additional job that
takes the place of Squire in their list of jobs. These jobs have
different abilities, some of which are so good that the character is
irreplaceable (like T.G. Cid), some situationally useful against certain
enemy types (like Meliadoul), and some downright useless to the point
of making you never want to use that character (Malak). These special
jobs make using random characters pointless once you have 5 named
characters.

As you accumulate job points you can learn
different abilities specific to whatever job the character is at the
time. A chemist for example can spend 30 job points to learn how to use
potions. 90 job points can teach them to use a phoenix down, and a
whopping 900 job points to learn to use elixirs. When you spend the
points to learn a new spell or ability they are gone, and you must
accumulate more to learn more abilities. Once you've learned every
ability for a job, that job becomes mastered and has a star by the name
in the job selection screen so that you know there's nothing else to
learn there.

Different jobs also have innate abilities that
are always active as long as the character is doing that job. A chemist
for example can always throw items like potions or ethers a certain
number of squares to hit an ally who's not standing near them, but if
you want to do that with another class you must spend 350 job points to
learn the "Throw Items" support ability. A ninja can inherently equip a
weapon in each hand, a white mage can always use white magic, etc.

Each character has two stats called Brave and Faith that effect
different abilities in different ways. High faith improves the damage
that character does with magical attacks, but it also increases the
amount of damage they receive from magical attacks. You would think that
characters you use as front-line melee fighters would be best kept at a
low faith level, but since low faith also makes cure spells heal for
smaller amounts, that might not always be the case if you heal with
spells instead of items very often.

Brave affects things such
as a Monk's attack power, your counter-attack rate if you have "Counter"
learned and equipped, etc. One of my favorite abilities is "Blade
Grasp", which gives you an evasion rate that's dependant on your Brave
level. If you've got 95 brave, then you'll evade 95% of melee attacks
used against you. Talk about powerful! Conversely, really low brave
helps you discover rare items if you're using the Chemist's "Move Find
Item" ability so it's nice to keep one character with low brave (with 70
brave you would have a 70% chance to find the rare item and a 30%
chance to find the common item on a block that has a hidden item when
you step on it). That's the only time I'm aware of that low brave is
more useful than high brave.

You can raise and lower brave and
faith during battle with certain abilities, and for every 5 points the
stat goes up during a battle it goes up 1 point permanently. Use caution
however, because if a character's permanent brave level drops to 5 he
will leave your party forever because he's a coward, and if the
permanent faith gets up to 95 they will leave forever to pursue a life
devoted to religion.

For even more complexity each character
also has a Zodiac sign, and different Zodiac signs have different
compatibility with other signs. If your sign and the sign of your enemy
are compatible you will have a higher chance to hit them, charm them,
steal from them, etc. If the enemy is of the opposite sex it increases
the chances even more. If the signs are incompatible, the sex is the
same and the enemy is using a good shield you may find yourself with a
ridiculously low chance to do much to them. In that case you're usually
better off to walk away and move another character over to deal with
that enemy.

There are a decent number of items available in
the game as well, including a number of different consumables to cure
various status ailments and a wide variety of weapons and armor. Not
only that, but there are different types of equipment for the different
classes. Most jobs have their own specific types of weapons; ninja
swords, katanas, knight swords, harps, daggers, bows, maces, etc. There
are more than a dozen different swords, along with another handful of
knight swords, a dozen shields, etc. There are also a couple of
different types of armor and helmets, like light armor, heavy armor and
robes for different classes to equip.

There are many
accessories too, like feather boots to cast float on your character
permenantly or an angel ring so the character has permenant reraise.
Cloaks to raise your evasion rate or bracelets to protect against
various status ailments. In addition, there are a few items such as the
ribbon and some perfumes that can only be equipped by female characters

[Presentation]

While the graphics aren't anything spectacular, they are really
detailed. The random generic soldiers all look similar, females with one
sprite and males with another, but they have a different sprite for
each of the different jobs that they can become which means a lot of
variety anyway. On top of that, each of the special named characters
looks unique and nothing like anyone else, but the downside to this is
that they don't change their appearance when they change jobs. I think
the characters look much, much better and are far more detailed than the
characters in the other PlayStation era Final Fantasy games.

The world map looks nice, but there's really nothing to it because it's
just a flat plane with dots and lines on it. The battles look really
good though, with nice textures on every block. Different height
elevations gradually climb with angles and inclines, so it's not like a
world made entirely of Legos or anything. The settings and locations
really look nice, and there's a good variety to them. One level you may
be on a wavy desert with cliffs and cacti, and the next you may be near a
giant waterfall with rocky cliff faces and a wooden bridge, and then
the next you may be in a town with multiple buildings and roads where
you must fight your way across the roof tops to defeat your enemy.

The sound effects are pretty standard but they work well, but the music
is really outstanding. We get a nice mixture of dark and brooding tones
to make boss fights seem more harrowing, slower melodic music to
enhance particularly emotional cut scenes and faster enthusiastic pieces
during random battles on the map. The music really adds to the
atmosphere and does nothing but enhance the game. The only piece that I
really got tired of was the piece that plays at the start of every
battle while you choose which characters to fight with. After about the
hundredth time you listen to that same piece at the start of every
single battle you really start wishing there were 2 or 3 different tunes
that it cycled between for some variety.

The cutscenes are
the one bit of negative. They look real nice and are rendered using the
game engine, but they go really slowly. Even worse are the screens of
text between chapters that tell more of the story... these scenes go
r... e... a... l... l... y... slow! To top it all off, they can't even
be skipped which is a huge bummer. After playing through the game a
couple of times, I really don't need to be forced to sit through one
screen for 5 minutes as it slowly displays four lines of text. I usually
end up taking the time during those scenes to take a break and use the
bathroom, grab a drink, etc. Aside from those minor negatives however,
the presentation of the game is exceptional.

[Conclusion]

Final Fantasy Tactics is one of my favorite PlayStation era games, and
probably my favorite tactical RPG of all time. It's one of the first
games I ever bought for the PlayStation, and I've actually picked up 3
different copies over the years as the first ones got scratched up or
lost by my younger brothers.

There are a whole lot of
positives: a good number of enemies, a good amount of different
equipment and tons of customizability on how you want to play. There is a
wide cast of unique characters with their own reasons for fighting and
their own unique skills that they bring to bear. The grand storyline is
deep and involved, and the style of the game really brings it all
together into an epic saga that shouldn't be missed.

If you
can't pick up the PlayStation version of the game, you can still grab
Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions for the PlayStation Portable
(PSP) or the iPad/iPhone. Supposedly it's really similar, but with
additional jobs, items, characters and cutscenes (now with voiceovers).
In one form or another, this is one game that should appeal to a large
variety of people and everyone should at least look into.

There's so much more I could say about this game, but you really have to play it to truly appreciate it.